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Truth

Mar 17
0

Cultivating Virtue Amidst Public Adversity & Uncertainty

By | The Virtues, Truth | No Comments

In light of the ongoing Coronavirus crisis and the chaotic public discussion that has inevitably surrounded it (as it now does every election, political controversy, or social concern these days), here are six brief reflections on protecting and improving the public discourse, as well as encouraging growth in virtue amid adverse and uncertain times.

Acknowledge Ignorance: All of us (you and I included) are operating in ignorance. What percentage of the data — people, places, events, percentages, etc — regarding this issue do we have any sure, first-hand, empirical knowledge of? Very, very little. We must acknowledge this.

Temper Words Accordingly: Hence, while we can (and will, and should!) form opinions and share/discuss these opinions with others, our sharing and discussing (and our attitudes throughout) should be reflective of #1 and have as the goal seeking greater understanding through dialogue and the building up of the participants in the conversation, strengthening the relationship between them. None of us KNOW for sure the “facts”. We must attempt to think, speak, and act in ways that are proportionate and appropriate to what we actually KNOW, and charity/humility must always prevail.

Respect Discernment and Decision-Making: In this situation, as in all of life, we can’t stop the train and “wait for all the facts to come in”. First, because they never will in any ultimate or final sense, and second, because we have to continue to make decisions and live our lives as best we can in the meantime. Recognize that all of us are in that same position: we have to prudently and calmly survey the data and opinions around us and then make decisions about how to proceed. The decisions won’t be perfect and they will look different from family to family, person to person. The key is that those decisions are made as each person’s best attempt at a rational response to reality, and not as givings-in to fear or desire.

Remember What Success or Failure Really Look Like and Consist Of: Recognize that among the “unknowns” out there right now are the actual danger we are in (transmissibility, mortality, etc etc) and how much/little the efforts to contain or mitigate can/will be successful. Whatever those unknowns turn out to be, the way we “fail” or “succeed” is not by turning out to have been “wrong” or “right” but by having made “bad” or “good” decisions in the meantime — decisions, for example, that do or do not accord with our discernment and the voice of conscience, actions or words that do or do not build up and respect the dignity of our neighbor (especially the one who has come to different conclusions to us), our continuing or failing to carry out our vocational duties and responsibilities (as Christians, spouses, parents, neighbors, etc) in Humility, Faithfulness, and Charity. The Devil laughs loudest, not when people die or when they are wrong or deceived about facts/data, but when they can be goaded, scared, or lured into anger, hatred, suspicion, envy, greed, vanity, or despair (etc) — in other words, when they Sin.

The Hinge: In light of #4, keep the Cardinal Virtues in mind (Cardinal is derived from the Latin word cardo, which means hinge). They are the “hinges” of the moral life and provide the framework for making right decisions. Their practice will ensure that fruit is borne out of this or any trial. To review, in brief:

PRUDENCE: the practiced habit of facing reality, and making proactive decisions accordingly. Prudence is mother and mold of all other moral virtue.

JUSTICE: giving God, neighbor, and ourselves [as people we are also responsible for] what each is due, in proper order and proportion, to the best of our abilities.

COURAGE: carrying out the decisions of PRUDENCE, faithfully, even and especially when this means facing some fear, danger, or pressure to do otherwise.

TEMPERANCE: carrying out the decisions of PRUDENCE when our desires/passions [whether for comfort, power, pleasure, self, etc] would tempt us otherwise. Re-ordering these desires/passions according to PRUDENCE and JUSTICE.

Connect to the Source: In all things, be mindful of the grace of the Theological Virtues (God’s action), that precede and fulfill the Cardinal virtues (our action), and of the source of that grace. Our Lord is the source, and the Theological Virtues — Faith, Hope, and Love — are gifts that invite our conscious response and engagement. We must choose Love over hatred, Faith over distrust, Hope over despair, and we must carry out these pledges of allegiance to the creator through the actions of our lives.

Believe that the Lord remains in control during this time and that He is near to you and assisting you. Believe that He has a plan and that every moment contains His presence and will yield his opportunities and invitations to the seeking heart. Pray that the Lord may help the “unbelief” revealed by the present fears and anxieties we are experiencing.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge HIM, and HE will direct your paths.” — Proverbs 3:5-6

Dec 22
0

Doctrine Unites, Prejudice Divides

By | Truth, Uncategorized | No Comments

I shared one of my favorite chapters from one of my favorite books by G.K. Chesterton, “The New Hypocrite” from “What’s Wrong With the World” on Fr. John Holleman’s radio show recently. In the chapter, Chesterton contrasts doctrine and prejudice as two modes of thought: “A doctrine is a definite point; a prejudice is a direction”. He explores these two modes in defending what, to modern ears, would seem like an audacious claim:

But indeed the case is yet more curious than this. The one argument that used to be urged for our creedless vagueness was that at least it saved us from fanaticism. But it does not even do that. On the contrary, it creates and renews fanaticism with a force quite peculiar to itself. This is at once so strange and so true that I will ask the reader’s attention to it with a little more precision.

I share Chesterton’s thesis along with a number of key quotes from the chapter and I explore how we can readily see that his diagnosis and predictions have come true and explain the dismal state of modern public discourse.

Click here to listen:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/religious-faith-and-the-public-square/id1316181135?mt=2#

Aug 22
0

Lying and Other Obstacles to Truth

By | Truth, Why Aren't We Saints? | No Comments

I very much appreciated Leah Libresco’s succinct treatment of the topic of lying that was featured on Strange Notions today as the third in a series of articles about the topic. Her title was “Interfering with the Eschaton:Why Lying is wrong”.

As I have read the various explorations of the topics over the past couple of years I have had to agree with Leah and others who conclude that lying simply can’t be rationalized the way we sometimes want it to be. The world is broken and in need of healing and any time we deal with this difficulty through sinful means, we have passed the buck. We have insisted that the heroic virtue is someone’s else’s job,

This is not a comfortable conclusion but it is the one that seems most logically coherent with how I understand the world. It makes me uncomfortable in precisely the way that the cross makes me uncomfortable.

Near the end of her article, Leah introduced a very important point:

Honesty is a starting point; you can take the duty to avoid passive deception much further. Humans are prone to any number of biases that make it hard to hear or notice the truth. You may be telling the truth when you use CAPS LOCK, but you’ve made it harder for your interlocutor to listen to you. Tone can be as effective a barrier to truth as misdirection.

This caught my eye because the problem of inadvertently (or sometimes intentionally) erecting unnecessary barriers for other people to come to the truth is a favorite topic of mine and one I plan to write on more. On the topic of the morality of lying, this excerpt introduces an aspect of the the debate that I have wanted to address.

To Leah and others who have so eloquently treated this issue and explained the tough conclusion that lying is simply wrong, I would like to make a suggestion per not erecting unnecessary barriers to others whom we would like to help see this truth.

While I myself have come to accept this tough conclusion, I sympathize (perhaps because of the recency of my change in thinking) with those whose gut-reaction in response to the hypothetical Nazi scenario is to rationalize lying. One of the difficulties here is that we have too much hollywood and not enough saints. We have a plethora of mental images of how easy it would be to lie and all the goods that might come in consequence, and we have little mental material with which to imagine the alternative.

I think it would be helpful (as well as charitable) for some of the excellent writers and thinkers on this topic to indulge people who are morally paralyzed by such hypothetical scenarios by exploring what the alternatives to lying might be. If the Nazis really do show up at our doors tomorrow morning, and yet we are convicted against lying, what should we do? What does it look like? Let me be quite clear: I am not asking this rhetorically as a sort of “gotcha” as is the cliche, I am sincerely asking a question which I suspect is probably on the minds of many well-intentioned but troubled souls. We need to help re-populate the moral imaginations of those who find this a “difficult teaching”. (Would any good fiction writers out there like to take up the task? Or do you have some good sci-fi scenarios to recommend?)

Refusing to sympathize with such people and to address their concerns, I think, would be an example of one of these unnecessary barriers to truth. We may be tempted to consider such concern with contempt, perhaps recollecting our own past weaknesses and rationalizations, but we mustn’t lose souls in our enthusiasm to assert the point. Just as the rejection of lying involves embracing the Truth over what is immediately gratifying or comforting, so does tempering self-satisfaction and indignation such that we can speak charitably and sympathetically to those in doubt. As Leah states: “Love begins by not placing any new obstacles in the way of our neighbors.” If we want more people to be freed by this tough truth, let us love them enough to attempt to tell the Truth in a way that will help them better hear it (i.e. wight he CAPS LOCK turned off for starters).

In closing, we should expect to be challenged by the Truth and suspicious when we aren’t. In this case, the easy but ultimately wrong road is unfortunately a very familiar one in our minds. Speak the truth in charity, sympathize with those who are troubled, and regarding this particular topic, help people imagine what the hard but right road might look like – you may give them the nudge they need to embrace the cross.

(Caveat: Any potential character flaws alluded to in this piece are directed at the only soul I have first-hand knowledge of: my own. They may be of limited relevance to the rest of the world.)

Nov 04
0

What Faith Is and Isn’t – Fr. Robert Barron

By | Culture, Truth, Uncategorized, Why Aren't We Saints? | 2 Comments

Here is another among the many excellent videos by Fr. Robert Barron. The video clarifies the common but (I think) often misused or misunderstood term “faith”.

This particular video caught my eye and then my immense interest and excitement upon watching  because Fr. Barron beautifully and concisely explains faith as it needs to be explained to the modern mind, for whom the word has so much baggage that it almost loses all meaning.

Using human relationships as an analogy, Fr. Barron shows how faith is not only normal but necessary in our relationships with both the human and the divine . In his example, Fr. Barron explains that while we can and do use our reason to learn much about another person, there is a whole world of knowledge about that person we will never know without them telling us: their thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, desires, goals, etc. To know a person on this level we must listen to them speak and at some point make the choice to trust what they say. Without this trust, human relationships are impossible. ( I once used a very similar example and line of thought in a talk I gave to high schoolers about the nature of faith. Great minds think alike, and mediocre minds, like mine, sometimes get lucky.)

This is insightful because faith is seldom thought of or talked about in a relational sense. Often faith is reduced by both believers and nonbelievers  to being blind belief, superstition, or a mere wager on God’s potential existence based on the probabilities of risk and reward.  But this is simply not what Catholics mean by religious faith.

In article 26 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church it states, “faith is man’s response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man”. Humans cannot initiate faith on our own (as they could if faith simply were an act of blind belief or a bet). Rather, faith is a relational response to God. God reveals himself and it is our decision to trust this revelation and act upon it which constitutes faith.

I think this idea of faith clarifies and makes sense out of a term that is often used quite vaguely. However, I think it is also challenging. It implies that faith really is about an encounter with God, a relationship with God. It is about trusting and obeying a live author who entered His own story in the person of Jesus Christ and remains present and approachable in prayer and in the sacraments of the Church.

If, contrary to its detractors, faith is not mere blind belief, superstition, or a cosmic wager, but rather a “yes” to the God who reveals Himself to us in Christ, the Word, through the natural world, art, beauty, the Church, the sacraments, and in our own hearts, there are important questions to be pondered by believers and non-believers alike.

Have I rejected or feared “faith” because I thought it was superstition or a blind jump? Am I open enough to Truth that I would accept and put faith in God if I really did encounter Him? Have I really sought God Himself or rather just some mental proposition about God?  Though I purport to “believe”, have I avoided this kind of faith in God for fear that He may not really be there? Have I avoided this kind of faith in God for fear that He really might be there after all, and want more from me than I am willing to give?

Here are a couple of my articles that ask and ponder similar questions:

Eucharistic Adoration: Alone with the Perilous Question

Two Fears – The Reasons We Avoid Discovering Whether God Is Really There

The com-box is open. I would love to know your thoughts!